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SINGAPORE: Your skin is flushed and it’s looking like a nasty flare-up rather than the rosy radiance you were hoping for when you got your umpteenth bottle of moisturiser. Before charging back to ask for a refund, consider if this is your skin’s way of raising the alarm that you are using too many products.
“Sometimes women want to be beautiful overnight and they are over-zealous in their approach,” said Ms Michelle Ong, group product training manager at Lancaster.
“For instance, they use all types of sheet masks from different brands on a daily basis. When you bombard your skin with too much of a good thing too often, problems start to occur.”
Ms Ong suggests keeping to products of the same brand because their formulas are designed to work in harmony and it is okay to mix and match.
It sounds perfectly logical. But the beauty industry would hardly be such a thriving business if we were capable of such restraint.
With the constant influx of new technologies, new formulations and new marketing taglines, it seems only natural to be curious about the next big breakthrough. Until the skin’s protests manifest in the form of redness, peeling and inflammation, that is.
“Women like to try different products but when active ingredients overlap and are too strong, skin can flare up,” said Dr Patricia Yuen, dermatologist at Pacific Healthcare Specialist Centre. Potentially irritating ingredients to look out for include retinol, alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide.
Dr Ang Por, consultant dermatologist at Dermatology Associates Skin and Laser Specialists, has seen patients who developed skin problems after combining too many such ingredients in their regimens.
She explained: “Using multiple ingredients increases the chance of irritation or allergy. Overexposure to multiple ingredients may also cause skin to become sensitised and develop allergies to them.”
Seems like a grave price to pay when the initial goal was better and healthier skin.
Dr Yuen recommends paring down and sticking to this list of basics: Cleanser, nonalcohol-based toner, a product containing antioxidants such as Vitamin C if you’re over 30, moisturiser and sunblock. She added: “Don’t exfoliate all the time. Once a week is enough.”
- TODAY/ yt
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